Heroes & Generals mix live action with in-game footage in new "Come Out and Play" trailer

Reto-Moto has released a new trailer for their upcoming free-to-play online persistent wargame Heroes & Generals that mixes live action with in-game footage. It's actually pretty interesting, if not a tad silly seeing live people with their gamertags floating above their heads.

June 21, 2012, Copenhagen

We are proud to present our new Heroes & Generals “Come Out to Play” trailer.

Based on Heroes & Generals, the Massive Online Strategic Shooter being built by a veteran team that includes the original creators of the Hitman franchise, “Come Out to Play” is produced to entertain and inform. By splicing live action and in-game sequences together, the movie celebrates H&G’s innovative combined online first-person shooter and strategic campaign in an authentic World War II setting.

Community Stars

As a true testament to our open door development model, where developers work with Heroes & Generals players in the alpha and beta community to enhance the game, we invited some hardcore fans to join us on set for the filming of “Come Out to Play.” From near and far, these community co-stars arrived and happily joined members of our development team on the frontlines and in the strategy room for a few days of glorious make-believe war.

"We wish to create a living and breathing game universe, where we deliver the setting and the scene, but the real 'star' is the community who plays out all the active roles in a persistent war and helps us tweak the experience into the game that they want to play,” says Jacob Andersen, Game Director at Reto-Moto. “I believe that the 'Come Out to Play' trailer shows the scope of Heroes & Generals – and it's just perfect that we have actual community members participating as actors in it!"

About Heroes & Generals

Heroes & Generals is a free-to-play persistent online wargame that is playable in a standard PC browser thanks to the powerful and proprietary Retox engine.

It features multiple combat roles, vehicles and progressive character development for heroes on the frontlines and generals managing tactics and resources on the campaign map. Soon iOS and Android devices will host the Heroes & Generals: Mobile Command app, giving generals real-time strategic control from virtually anywhere.

Currently in closed beta, fans of online shooters and strategy games are invited to enlist now at www.heroesandgenerals.com to help us make the game that YOU want to play!

Fun Facts about the production of “Come Out to Play”:

All participants in the trailer are developers or community members.

The director, photographer and editor of the live action footage is the twin brother (Jesper Colding) of our Lead Animator, Thomas Colding. And Thomas directed the in-game footage.

It was filmed using a Canon DSLR Crop camera with various lenses. Jesper actually invented his own custom dolly using pieces from IKEA.

All the CGI footage is in-game footage.

We used the names of some of our most active core community members as tags in the in-game footage.

First movie shoot was filmed in a basement below our old office, in secrecy. Other locations were scouted, but it was too perfect for the shoot.

We wanted to find a basement which looked like a place where crazy gamers (like ourselves) might go to roleplay generals moving imaginary war pieces and taking themselves far too seriously. Mission accomplished!

We rallied 9 community members for the first shoot. Interestingly, one talented fellow (Vashu) was actually hired as a programmer after the shoot!

Three of the community members included a father (rambodk) and his two sons (mgmmads and Lodrysil – also a moderator on the H&G forums).

One die hard community member (cRo4ti4) showed up all the way from Berlin carrying two pieces of paper with questions about Heroes & Generals, which he used every possible break in the shoot to ask us.

The second shoot was filmed in 'Dyrehaven' (Danish for 'The Deer Park') outside Copenhagen. Dyrehaven is a very well known park in Denmark.

The outdoor scenes were shot in the winter. Filming began in the early morning and it was freezing.

Our CEO's son was supposed to show up, but he bailed because it was too cold!

Dyrehaven was chosen because it’s a really epic setting and we found locations there that resembled some of the in-game maps.

4 developers were part of this shoot, as well as PR Manager Kenneth Ellegaard Andersen.

The third shoot was at our office during GDC, starring three developers and a return cameo appearance by community member Lodrysil.

Level Designer and co-founder Peter Fleckenstein was filmed sitting on the toilet with an iPad to demonstrate our upcoming app 'Heroes & Generals: Mobile Command'. It sort of brings a whole new meaning to 'Play Anytime, Play Anywhere'.

Nobody was harmed in the making of this video! While thousands have been fragged in Heroes & Generals.